Pete -
An apologia for Commons, and the obvious implication that use on projects
will have to (if people actually care to enforce local standards) require
checking license status for every Project use, do not in any way lessen the
need for Uncommons.
On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 11:26 AM, Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 11:12 AM, George Herbert
<george.herbert(a)gmail.com
wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 8:58 AM, Pete Forsyth <peteforsyth(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Can you clarify -- who do you intend by "we"?
If your answer is
"English
> Wikipedia," I think we already have a
somewhat workable solution to
this
complex
problem: fair use is permitted in certain cases.[2] Of course,
you
> probably mean something broader. But the solution English Wikipedia has
> chosen is available, by virtue of a WMF resolution,[3] to every
Wikimedia
> > project. So if fair use is the issue, why not simply propose permitting
> it
> > at specific local projects?
> The whole point of Commons is to serve as a central repository of shared
> images for Projects to use together.
I think if we're going to talk about the *whole* point of Commons, we
should look back at the original proposal for its establishment, which
clearly identified it as a place for *freely licensed* works:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2004-March/014885.html
> The same image on en.wikipedia and
> ru.wikipedia and es.wikipedia and the dictionaries and books and travel
> and...
But en.wikipedia and ru.wikipedia and es.wikipedia have different standards
about whether a non-free file can be used. So, does a shared repository for
non-free files really make sense, considering that most projects prohibit
them outright, and those few that do permit them only permit them under
very narrow and unique circumstances?
> The failure of Commons
The failure of Commons? You consider the most extensive project created in
the Wikimedia movement a failure? On what grounds?
I have no problem with Commons
remaining as-is if we have an alternate
lowest-common-denominator image
repo that will automatically be searched for images as Commons is now.
"Fair use" law in the U.S. is pretty tightly tied to the way something is
used; so the very act of publishing something *outside* of a use context
would, by its very nature, strain at the limits of the fair use provision.
And English Wikipedia's standards are actually much tighter than those of
the U.S. law in that regard.
-Pete
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